The Director of the Academy for Spiritual Formation, Jerry Haas, asked me why I went to the Academy. Here was my answer to him.
After years of ministry, I found myself spent and was drawing from an empty well. I had become really good at doing church work and had at the same time neglected my own soul. It took a painful situation to expose this chasm of emptiness to my own awareness, and as I embarked on the journey of healing I discovered a whole world of spirituality and passion within me for something more. I began to see that all I was experiencing was a dark night of the soul that put me in touch with centuries of spiritual flow. I set out on a quest that brought me first to a monastery, then to the writings of spiritual masters, and then to the Academy. I felt undeniably drawn to it because the rhythm and balance enlivened a craving for silence, authentic community, and a life of prayer in me. Through the Academy, I found rootedness for the first time in my life.
